In the four years I’ve called Community First! Village home, I haven’t had much room for sewing or weaving. However, I’ve had access to abundant outdoor space, and so while my farmer-husband has handled growing our vegetables, I’ve cultivated several experimental textile crops: first cotton, and then dye plants. Two years ago, I received seeds… Continue reading Uprooting

I’ve always loved hand-me-downs. As a child, I refused to wear clothes without “stories” – either the story of how my Mama made it, or the story of the person who owned and wore it before me. Having a baby has renewed my love for hand-me-downs. Recently, some friends of my husband gave us their… Continue reading Make Do and Mend: Jogging Stroller Strap Replacement

The peace-makers quiet the winds of the world ever ready to be up and blowing; they tend and cherish the interlacing roots of the ministering grass; they spin and twist many uniting cords, and they weave many supporting bands...[but] every self-assertion, every form of self-seeking however small or poor, world-noble or grotesque, is a separating… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: George MacDonald

Make no mistake: if he rose at all It was as His body; If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit, The amino acids rekindle, The Church will fall. It was not as the flowers, Each soft spring recurrent; It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: John Updike

As a scholar of literature, I find rich meaning in Mary's engagement with her Book, but I can't help mourn the disappearance of the spindle. While Mary's reading calls our minds to the invisible work of the Spirit as we hear the Word, her spindle affirms that the Incarnation transforms the daily work of our hands into worship -- work with eternal consequences.

Each participant took home four wraps, with a supply cost under $5 for each set. Considering that commercial beeswax wraps can cost $18 for a set of three, it was well worth the time it took to make them. And when add the quality time we spent together, we gained far more than we spent.